Of the many criticisms made concerning the workshop method of teaching creative writing (for example, that the method is being misapplied to undergraduate writers before they have mastered the basics, that workshop comments can be competitive or even mean rather than constructive), the one most relevant to the intersection of creative writing and new media is that traditional workshopping comes at the wrong time in the writing process.
The traditional workshop generally follows this formula:
- The author drafts a short story, a piece of a novel, one or a small group of poems; although the pieces are “in-progress” there is generally a high level of completeness to the work being workshopped. This is particularly true in academic courses.
- The texts are distributed to the workshop participants who read and comment on the texts.
- On the appointed day, the author presents the work, often reading it out loud.
- The other participants offer feedback or comments to the author. For this process, there is some variation.
- Often, authors are not allowed to speak at all. The theory is that this prevents the author from being defensive or from explaining their text, which (in theory) should be self-explanatory since the author will not be with all of their readers to explain what the text means.
- Sometimes, the author is allowed to answer direct questions
If all goes well, the author leaves with good insights and ideas for how to take his or her writing to the next level. That is, if the author is willing to make major changes to a piece they consider nearly finished. and if the workshop doesn’t go well — if commenters focus too much on their preferences and not what the piece is trying to do — then the author and the writing can suffer. Traditionally, academic workshops often have the effect of norming a piece of writing rather than elevating it. Comments ground the expectations for the text in the accepted norm of literary or writing,
Many critics of the current workshop-intensive pedagogy in undergraduate creative writing courses argue that students should spend more time focused on learning their craft — intentionally playing with the forms and with language itself — so that students produce a portfolio of wide-ranging exercises that they can then use to launch or inform more finished pieces. When creating their collection of low-risk writings, students should be encouraged to write things in a variety of genres and voices.
Workshops, these critics argue, also need to start much earlier in the creation process–before the course of the story is set, before the tone is established, and before hours of work has gone into moving a text to near completion. This would resemble the process commonly used in media ventures, the “Pixar” method. Because film and video are so expensive to produce (and this is even more true for games and other interactives), studios never create the entire product and then seek feedback. The creator comes to a “brain trust” when ideas are still fluid and tell the story of what they are trying to create. As they tell their story (not read), others ask questions about audience, the intention of elements, or the impact the author wants. Notes are made and shared. Then the creator goes off to create their draft and move their project closer to completion.